How to watch Book Club 2: The Next Chapter in New Zealand
Can this fast-tracked sequel recapture the alchemy of the original?
If you got a kick out of delightful late-life rom-com Book Club, we have some great news for you: the girls are back, and they’re older than ever! That’s not a slam, that’s just how linear time works. Book Club 2: The Next Chapter is in cinemas now.
Once again, we’re hanging out with literary ladies Diane (Diane Keaton), Vivian (Jane Fonda), Sharon (Candice Bergen) and Carol (Mary Steenbergen), who are catching up in person after a COVID-mandated pivot to streaming. Celebrating Vivian’s engagement to old boyfriend Arthur (Don Johnson), the quartet hie off for a luxurious trip through Italy, culminating in a destination wedding in Tuscany.
Naturally things go wrong, but in the most charming possible manner. There’s various mishaps along the way involving a smuggled urn full of Diane’s late husband’s ashes, a lecherous chef (Vincent Riotta), an urbane philosophy professor (Hugh Quarshie), a truculent country cop (Giancarlo Giannini), and more. Craig T. Nelson is back as Carol’s husband, Bruce, while andy Garcia returns as Diane’s boyfriend, Mitchell, and the whole thing is shepherded by returning director Bill Holderman, who is once again co-writing with Erin Simms.
This time out our girl gang is not guided by the Fifty Shades books, which inspired them to make some much-needed changes to their various love lives in the previous film, but rather Paulo Coelho’s allegorical novel The Alchemist, which is certainly a step in the right direction, literarily speaking. Unfortunately, Coelho doesn’t make a cameo like Fifty Shades author E.L. James and her husband did in Book Club, which strikes us as a missed opportunity.
The Book Club movies are the cinematic equivalent of a sneaky glass of bubbles in a scented bath—a little bit cheeky, a tad luxurious, but deeply comforting at base. We’ll be digging into this chapter with great gusto, and eagerly awaiting the next.
